In the Creole Twilight

Poems and Songs from Louisiana Folklore

Joshua Clegg Caffery

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Year: 2015
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780807161562
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Many of the recurring motifs found in south Louisiana's culture spring from the state's rich folklore. Influenced by settlers of European and African heritage, celebrated customs like the Courir de Mardi Gras and fabled creatures like the Loup-Garou grow out of the region's distinctive oral tradition. Joshua Clegg Caffery's In the Creole Twilight draws from this vibrant and diverse legacy to create an accessible reimagining of the state's traditional storytelling and songs.A scholar and Grammy-nominated musician, Caffery borrows from the syllabic structures, rhyme schemes, narratives, and settings that characterize Louisiana songs and tales to create new verse that is both well-researched and refreshingly inventive. Paired with original pen-and-ink illustrations as well as notes that clarify the origins of characters and themes, Caffery's compositions provide a link to the old worlds of southern Louisiana while constructing an entirely new one.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Author’s Note
• Prologue
• A Letter to Pierre Grouillet
• The Feufollet of Irish Bend
• Saint Catherine and the Cherubim
• Sans-Souci
• Têche
• The Ring and the Cormorant
• Sunfish and Loom
• The Wooden Leg
• The Flame and the Tower
• The Loup-Garou
• When You Meet Two Friends
• Big Bull, Little Horn
• Gabriel and Madeline
• The Giantess Bride
• Home from the Forest
• The Blackbird’s Heart
• I Sent a Swallow First
• The Marriage of the Birds
• Around by the Wrist
• Father January
• Claude Martin’s Last Requests
• Let Him Reach Heaven Dressed All in White
• A Benediction for Rosalie
• Under the Gardenia
• A Paper of Pins
• Captain Russel
• The Shepherdess Queen
• The Crow and the Swallow
• The Poet Begs for Charity
• Notes